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Home » Arendt about Brecht through a bit of Auden

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As collected in Reflections on Literature and Culture (p.223)
“You hope, yes,
your books will excuse you,
save you from hell:
nevertheless,
without looking sad,
without in any way
seeming to blame.
(He doesn’t need to,
knowing well
what a lover of art
like yourself pays heed to),
God may reduce you
on Judgment Day
to tears of shame,
reciting by heart
the poems you would
have written, had
your life been good.” (Auden, 1965: 13)
Google books has some of it.

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